The Countdown Begins...

It’s amazing what happens when you tell God “yes.”

In just nineteen days (NINETEEN—I can count that on my fingers and toes!) I will board a plane to Uganda. For those of you who are geographically challenged, that is in AFRICA. And I get to go there! Praise the Lord!

Like most people, your brain is probably teeming with questions already. Where in Uganda? What will you be doing? With whom are you going? From where did all this spring up? Do you like bananas? I won’t be able to answer all of them in this post. I will, however, share with you a poem I wrote in college that will give you a small picture of what God has been doing in my heart for quite some time:

Barren Beauty

Sand stretches farther than God’s reach.

The Ethiopian sun shoots spikes of sunlight

Through a dusty road. Three years and no rain,

not a drop. The landscape thirsts.

Hundreds of homeless stomachs thunder

in unison. Bellies expand, empty as the barren

wasteland. Feet wade through dust and sand,

sidestepping the occasional scorpion

on a trek from empty rice bowls to sustenance.

Starvation everywhere, death is everywhere.

A woman’s sandy deathbed buries her half-eaten

stomach, yet still breathing. And her son.

Her son. His moon-sized head nearly crushes

a wiry body. Skin and bones? Bones would not

fit in those arms. And his eyes—hollow.

Two sunken sockets, bruises left from the bully

life had been to him. Hundreds of people pass

by, their own hungry eyes unseeing. How

could people be so human?

The TV screen flickers and blackens and I am left

with drowning eyes, cowering beneath the weight

of the world and counting my blessings

with disdain.

My fleece blanket caresses the goosebumps

on my arms. Wet eyes wander over DVDs

in the fridge because the bookshelves are full.

Computer light grows and fades, the respiration

of technology. Two beds. Two desks. Two mirrors

to reflect the face that used to smile back.

Beige carpet protects my feet from cold linoleum.

Photographs of Rome, missions to Missouri,

people I had thought I helped. We have no

idea what courage is. The more I look, the less

I see. What I once thought was beauty

now churns my stomach and I fear my possessions

will suffocate me. God, what can I do? What

can I do? The room is constricting and empty

of meaning. Maybe we got beauty wrong. Maybe

hope can only fill the space emptied by tears

and hunger, a beautiful possibility

most visible when barren.

This poem describes my reaction to a movie called Beyond Borders. I saw it for the first time in high school, and ever since then, God has been stirring in my heart a passion for children in poverty, particularly in third world countries in Africa. And in nineteen days, I get to become a part of His work there.

Here are the basics: I will be volunteering in an orphanage and children’s ministry center called Noah’s Ark Children’s Ministry Uganda (NACMU). It is located about ten kilometers outside Kampala, the capitol city. There are about 150 children who live at the orphanage, ranging from infants to teenagers. Beyond that, the center brings in an additional 350 children from the surrounding villages for school, medical services, and ministry. Those involved are committed to a holistic development for everyone in the area, rooted in and fueled by Christ’s love… and I can’t wait to become a part of their team for three months!

I have said “yes” to God. I know it will be hard. I know it will be scary. I know it will pose more challenges than I have had a chance to consider. But with Him as my guide, I am jumping, running, dancing at the chance to finally serve the least of these. Check in here every week or so to hear stories about the places I go and the people I meet… and of course, the God who makes all things possible.